John Pollock & Wai Ting go LIVE for members of the POST Wrestling Café immediately following AEW Dynamite
Watch & Listen live:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/119591283
The ‘show review’ portion will be available late tonight on the free feed & YouTube
Hi y’all, happy new year and thanks for all the great content over the holidays.
I wanted to drop a comment about the production and aesthetics of RAWoin Netflix. The cameras at the entrances seemed to be updated yet again and looked like they switched to some more expensive Angénieux lenses. I gotta say, since HHH took over, the aesthetics of the shows have been getting better and better, plus fewer edits per minute. I really enjoyed the new motion GFX and lower thirds.
Anyway, re: AEW creative… I still feel like they can’t provide a clear enough purpose behind so many of their characters/faction’s choices or actions. And the in-ring storytelling isn’t helping them make those connections. This is a shame because there are so many talented performers, and so few have stories that move past the immediacy of setting the stage for a single match.
It’s as though the Hangman / Elite, Punk / MJF, Hangman / Swerve storylines are some bygone era.
I believe that AEW needs writers now to build a framework for a continuous story; that doesn’t mean writing promos, but building out the arches and the milestones for programs and making sure that purpose, subtext, logic and continuity are more consistent.
Hamilton Dan
You’ve got a happy Dynamite viewer reporting in this week. Not only did I enjoy the matches, showdowns and all that jazz, but also MJF was liberated from that shitty Adam Cole storyline. What’s not to like?
Well, not everything was perfect. Private Party continue to look like kids doing a Sunday School play version of party dudes. I wish one of these years AEW would lean into more scenes of Isiah and Marq in different locales having a good time like the fun-loving charmers that they are. Instead MVP (who ruled on commentary tonight) effortlessly made these two look like shell shocked nerds without much pushback beyond end of match shenanigans. Let us love Private Party, AEW.
One moment I really loved was Powerhouse Hobbs ultra-direct promo. Instead of a Death Rider Mox match centered around the battle for the soul of AEW (or whatever), Hobbs more or less just wants to kick his former mentor’s ass because he has the title. Works for me! I’ll take that approach 100 times out of 100 versus any storyline about the state or fate of a wrestling promotion. Step it back, Mox!
Unrelated, will either of you two be watching the Netflix Springer docuseries that dropped this week? Pleasure listening to you as always.
Andrew from Cape Breton
The show was great tonight. I guess Tony’s assignment was learning not to call someone smelly. I feel I say this every time I see him wrestle but Buddy Matthews is incredibly underrated. I wonder if they put him with Ospreay and Omega going into Grand Slam Australia against the Don Callis family? The show flew by, and the Casino Gauntlet matches are always good to have on television. Great 3 way with the women as well. The only negative is that the Death Rider angle died after holding the Rock n’ Roll Express hostage like it was cop drama, so it doesn’t make for the best television. I was hoping that Omega would just win the gauntlet and beat Moxley next week. I guess you can hope for Revolution. Overall, it was an excellent show and went by quick.
Brian in New Jersey.
Take note that Benjamin above left his feedback halfway through Dynamite, presumably missing out on Powerhouse Hobbs reasserting himself, MJF and Jeff Jarrett’s segment, and Kenny Omega’s closing segment where he set up an immediate conflict with the Callis Family, and teased future interactions with Will Ospreay. All good storytelling in my eyes.
Very fun show highlighted by Omega’s promo and the Casino Gauntlet, and especially Ospreay vs. Matthews in a very slick and excellent match. I watched last week’s show on Max but chose to watch on TBS tonight. Lucked out with some decent picture-in-picture action. Very much looking forward to the Women’s Casino Gauntlet.
Dynamite was effectively bookended with Ospreay and Omega. The opener against Buddy Matthews was very good and Kenny’s return promo felt poignant, vulnerable and as it was getting better…Don Callis happened. The sooner Kenny gets this Callis family stuff off of his back, the better. I’m glad he kept his NJPW theme and going from Okada at Worlds End to Ospreay tonight is planting two massive matches down the line. The latter of which needs to held off until there’s a world title involved.
The Casino Gauntlet was solid and Hobbs is the right choice to face Mox in Cincinnati.
Privite party vs bobby lashley & shelton Benjamin for thr aew world tag team championship should be a good match and jon moxley vs powerhousr hobbs meat vs brawler match. Question for you guys does the font for aew revolution look like the font for the film new mutants?
Every show he loses feedback, it’s the same thing for him. He wants to get his stuff read first it seems, so he will comment mid show, and it’s largely redundant if he actually waited until the show was done.
